Shark attack boy 'improving'

The shark was wrestled to shore by the boy's uncle

The eight-year-old boy whose right arm was bitten off by a shark in Florida last week wiggled his toes and showed other signs of improvement, doctors say.

He requires very little assisted oxygen through the ventilator

Dr Rex Northup

Jessie Arbogast remained critically ill, but was spontaneously opening his eyes, they said. He blinked when his cornea was touched, though it was unclear if he was focusing on objects.

"His lungs continue to work well and sound clearer. He requires very little assisted oxygen through the ventilator, and continues to be weaned off the ventilator," Dr Rex Northup, the lead physician treating the boy in Pensacola, said in a statement.

The boy's arm was retrieved from the predator's throat and reattached by surgeons following the attack last Friday.

Extreme blood loss

But the boy suffered damage to his brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and other organs due to extreme blood loss.

Jessie Arbogast suffered massive blood loss

He has been undergoing dialysis since suffering kidney failure on Sunday and has not been able to talk to family members.

The boy arrived at the hospital with virtually no pulse or blood pressure and his brain and organs were deprived of blood and oxygen. He required more than 30 pints (14 litres) of blood during surgery.

Jessie was playing in knee-deep water at the Gulf Islands National Seashore in north-west Florida at dusk on Friday when a seven-foot (2.1-metre) bull shark bit off his arm between the elbow and shoulder. One of his legs was also severely gashed.

'Tough situation'

"It's going to be a very tough situation to pull him through," said Dr Northup earlier in the week.

"It is an unusual type of event for someone to go through full cardiopulmonary arrest for 30 to 45 minutes and survive."

Jessie's uncle carried him to shore, where relatives and beachgoers gave him cardiopulmonary resuscitation until he was flown by helicopter to the hospital.

The uncle then wrestled the shark to the beach, where a park ranger shot it four times in the head, causing it to relax its jaws.

Arm recovered

The ranger pried the shark's mouth open with a police baton while volunteer fire-fighter Tony Thomas reached in and pulled the arm from the shark's throat using a pair of forceps, park officials said.

Ten people were killed in shark attacks around the world last year

Emergency workers put the arm on ice and it was reattached during 11 hours of surgery on Saturday.

Dr Ian Rogers, the plastic surgeon who reattached the arm, said the wound was "remarkably clean" for a shark bite and he was hopeful that Jessie could regain near normal use of the arm within 18 months.

Jessie, from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, had been on holiday in Florida with his family.

The International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida confirmed 79 unprovoked shark attacks on humans worldwide in 2000, and more than a third of those occurred in Florida waters.

Ten of the attacks were fatal, including one in Florida.